
VL: How’s the weather?
FR: There was a cold snap here today. All of a sudden things went from 75 degrees
to 55 overnight.
VL: Same here. Alex is
building our stage design out back. I’m
actually at his house. He’s working
outside and I’m inside. It’s
drizzling. What a bummer.
FR: Yeah. I’m really
regretting not wearing socks today. But
y’know…
VL: Well, maybe that’s good in a way. Is it raining?
FR: No, it’s really nice outside. It doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, let’s get started. I’ve been listening to Bloom a lot. It definitely feels like a Beach House album-
but, to me, a different shade of you
guys, but still part of the same organism.
How do you think it compares to your earlier work?
VL: I don’t really like to compare records. It’s a hard thing to do. It’s totally a matter of opinion. As a person on the inside of every detail, I
like to think that the core of Beach House or whatever makes Beach House what
it is, it’s going to be different every time.
But the core of what we do stays the same, how we work together, how
passionate we are about stuff, how exacting we’ve become. A lot of things have stayed the same but a
lot of things have developed, matured, and evolved. So on that level, I don’t think it’s like the
past but we all quite naturally grow off one another. I could go into detail about what point in
the process this starts happening but usually we start going in a new direction
immediately after recording an album.
FR: Before I even heard the album or “Myth”, I was immediately
won over by the artwork. To me, it calls
to mind this conflicting imagery of intense, fluorescent lighting as well as
soothing ambience. How did that come
about?
VL: I think this time with our art for the LP, CDs, posters,
things like that- we were trying to go for more of a unified vision, a unified
feeling. That image with the lights and
the other four images in the artwork are all images that were taken
spontaneously throughout our lives- whether it was on a cell phone or
whatever. It’s not trying to be high art
or mind-blowing. A lot of the things we
do and love are based on a feeling. So
it was a moment in time and looking back on it for us, it absolutely resonated
with the music. I think we kind of work
abstractly as well. It’s the same thing
with titling records- a word has a certain vibe to it and to us it makes sense and it stays with us and it sticks
around. This image, and the other images
inside the album art, have that same feeling.
For us, it’s a feeling and a moment and it doesn’t go more analytical
than that and I think that translates to the viewer or listener. Obviously, what you said, I wouldn’t argue
with that.
FR: Teen Dream had a really intense touring schedule. I think it was something like 64 dates in 17
countries. With more shows approaching,
how do you guys prepare for such a rigorous schedule?
VL: For Teen Dream, we did about 180 shows and that’s like a
school year. I think that more than that
can be kind of destructive. I have some
friends who have done like 200 shows and they seem absolutley fried. We’ll play a lot of shows this year but we’ve
so far scheduled things in a way- here’s the thing about experiences, you get
better about durations of time, what you want to do, what you’re capable of
doing, how you can bring the best show.
You don’t want to fly in and fly out of places because you can’t do
production. We’ve been rehearsing a lot here
in Baltimore at our practice space and getting prepared stage-wise and
show-wise. I was talking earlier about
building and getting merchandise together and all kinds of special things and
doing all that detail work, it takes up a lot of our time. That’s how we get ready to tour. We try to get some rest- but it’s this really
enjoyable, militaristic lifestyle when you’re actually touring. We really love it- the process of getting to
the city and then basically building the stage that day and then you get to
play the show. All of the energy you
have, the goal is the show itself. It’s
been about six months and we’re all really excited to be back on the road. This is the longest we’ve ever not toured
since we’ve been in a band and we’ve been playing since 2005. Before we had gone one to three months max
without playing shows- so we’re ready.
Well, we’re ready as we’ll ever be.
The first couple of shows we will be getting used to the setlist, working
things out, and making sure the rhythm of the show is as effective as it can
be.
FR: Do you have a favorite place to play?
VL: In the world?
FR: In the world.
VL: Well, it’s hard to say because there are a lot of places I’ve
enjoyed playing. I have to say, on a
general note, the type of places we love to play are smaller, close shows. The ideal size is nothing bigger than 1200. Obviously anything smaller than that will be
an intimate show and anything bigger than that will be a huge show- it will be
harder for some people to see stuff, it’s not the ideal situation for us. I definitely love going down south and I’m
not just saying that to please anybody.
I really, genuinely have this sort of same pull like when you’re heading
west. It’s almost feels like
magnetically the west is calling. There’s
something that happens when you’re heading down 95 and you get past that
nightmare of a traffic zone. But once
you get free of that, it really feels like a different world. I feel like Baltimore is a total mix of the
south and the north. It has that sense of
being messed up, downtrodden, dark, y’know?
But it doesn’t have the speed thing that New York has or Philadelphia
tries to have. So I feel like the
further south I go, the happier I get.
But yeah, the south- there have been a lot of amazing venues you wouldn’t
expect to really like. It doesn’t have
to be this high quality place. It can be
a shithole. A lot of those factors… that’s
what we love about touring, it’s totally different every day and a lot of unexpected
things can happen. It’s really great.
FR: As far as characterizing Baltimore, when I think of popular
things to come out of Baltimore- I think of Beach House, I think of Cal Ripken,
and I think of HBO's The Wire. Have you ever
seen The Wire?
VL: I’ve only seen a few episodes of it. So I’m not a loyal Wire-watcher. But maybe on tour…
FR: Maybe so. Getting
back to the music, “Myth” is a pretty flooring lead single. Can you tell me how that came about? I think it’s really interesting- the album is
called Bloom, it’s coming out in May, but every time I hear “Myth”, I get a
snowflake vibe.
VL: I think an important feeling for us, and this is something we
will try to create live as well, is a sense of timelessness. A sense that when you’re experiencing the
album or when you’re at a show or even for ourselves, it’s important that we don’t
feel that since the album comes out in Spring, it has anything to do with
Springtime. The album title and the time of year it’s come out are two things
that weren’t meant to be on purpose. In
a boring way, putting it out in May is the soonest we can put it out and it
being called Bloom, we weren’t thinking “Oh yea, it’ll be a Spring record”. For us, it’s a lot bigger than that and that’s
why I think the timelessness is important.
You were talking earlier about the artwork and I think it’s important
that you do not feel like you’re in a literal, specific place. You could be in an atmospheric place in your
mind or imagination and I think, for us, that’s the ultimate direction with the
titles and songs. These songs, in a way,
a lot of them are journeys. And,in
general, with all music, I think that’s the effect it has on people. Something is speaking to you, calling to you,
and it’s taking you someplace else. So
we hope that maybe people can see beyond literal connections and go a little
bit deeper than that and more abstract instead of “Spring. Flowers…” It can be that for some people but I know, as
an artist, it’s not what it’s about. It’s
an experience from beginning to end.
FR: In the past, you've worked with the guys in Grizzly Bear.
VL: Years ago. Yeah.
FR: You collaborated on “Two Weeks” as well as the Twilight
song. Will there be any more
collaborations in the future? What was
it like working with those guys?
VL: I have no collaborations planned for right now because my
focus, as usual, is on Beach House. That’s
the most important thing for me and Alex, our dedication to Beach House. It’s kind of hard to remember what it was
like working with them. They’re really
nice guys and it was really easy and it happened really quickly. But I don’t have anything planned right
now. I have plenty on my plate.
FR: Music now is available in a variety of formats. You have digital downloads, CDs, vinyl of
course, and even cassette tapes are making a modest comeback. What is your favorite listening format for
music and on which do you think Beach House sounds best?
VL: For me, personally, I listen to tapes on a walkman that I
connect to my stereo- and I listen to vinyl.
For me, the order is tape, vinyl, then digital files. If I really desperately want to hear
something, I buy it and listen to the mp3.
But that’s when I really want something right away and I don’t have
it. For me, I really like the physical,
tangible music. I like albums. I like looking at old vinyl. With new vinyl, I usually think the packaging
is pretty awesome. I think it’s
something that’s extremely classic and should never go away. I don’t think it’ll ever go out of
style. I just think it’s something that
got maybe put on the side because people got so impressed with CDs and
mp3s. In the end, though, vinyl is the
most durable and the best sounding for most albums. Also, we recorded our last two albums,
including this one, on two-inch tape. I
think that we are audio-philes. Alex is
probably more of one than I am but we both have an idea of production for Beach
House. Tape can really create incredible feelings with sound and a computer
cannot replicate warmth or this flow that a record player can. Like a Gene Clark record, my dad gave me a
copy of that on vinyl and it’s kind of hard to find. But that’s even better too when you find
something that’s handed down to you from your dad or your uncle when he says “Here’s
a stack of records!”. It becomes really
meaningful. It’s like someone giving you
a book or a memory. It’s hard to give
someone an mp3 and be like, “Here’s this mp3 that I clicked on for five seconds
of my life… it really meant a lot to me..”
It’s good for sharing. Music
sharing is an amazing thing that humans do.
And if you want to make a mix tape or a playlist, that’s awesome. I just think that for me the experience is
taking time out for yourself. Putting an
album on, cracking a beer, or not cracking a beer and taking like an hour. If you can spend an hour on Facebook, you can
spend an hour listening to a record. It’ll
make you feel a lot better.
FR: So the music scene has really gone sideways in the past ten
years from Napster to iTunes to Spotify.
The way people listen to music has changed and we touched on that a bit
already. But where do you see the music
scene going in the next ten years?
VL: I hope that we find some sort of equilibrium. The way things have accelerated for me in the
past six years… ten years for me feels like a different era. We’re lucky because when we started putting
our music on the internet in 2006, it was still a pretty innocent time. MySpace was still a place where bands felt
was exciting because people were liking their music. There was still an innocence. But in the last six years, it’s accelerated
to a point where I can only see it spinning out of control. I think there is an end to everything and I
just hope people become more discerning about how they want to experience
things. And that if fans and music
listeners listen to a ripped version,they realize it’s not something that the
artist decided to put out and that you’re doing yourself a disservice in terms
of quality. You’re not having the
experience the artist wanted you to have and that they worked so hard for you
to have. I really don’t know where it’s
going. For all the people that I talk to
about how fast they think everything’s going, about how artists are built up
and discarded in like five seconds…. I mean, an artist who is coming out with
their first record has so much pressure on them immediately to deliver
live. They don’t even have time to build
up years of touring. We had a couple years to develop and play in front of no
one. Even if we had buzz in the
beginning, we still played shows in front of zero people. We weren’t so blown up out of proportion that
we didn’t have a chance to grow naturally.
I wish the best for artists starting out now and I hope that people can
be clever and figure out ways to take back the system to a more physical experience
of music and learning how to use the internet as a tool and not an
identity. That’s a big thing. Artistically, artists need to find a place
where they’re like “I’m an artist.. what’s my relationship to my fanbase?” Is it that you Twitter every five seconds
about what you had for lunch or what you’re doing with your dog? Or is it, “Hey, we have a show tonight and
the first ten people to Twitter back get on the guest list”. That’s an interesting and fun way to use it. You’re not compromising your artistic identity but you’re also using
the internet as a tool. I think the
industry’s always going to have problems.
It’s been like that even when there was no internet. Industry is kind of like the opposite of
art. But it’s a crazy mess. I just think that teenagers and twenty-five
year olds and forty year olds- we all need to have the same collective conscious
thought that we need to take a step back and slow our lives down and not be so
much in this alternative reality world.
Then, we might enjoy our lives more and that might affect everything.
FR: As a female frontwoman, I’m interested to see how you’ll
respond to this next question especially in how this pertains to the industry
versus art angle. How do you feel about
Lana Del Rey?
VL: Ohhhhh, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s hard to say. It’s really not my place to talk about
artists because I don’t know what’s going on in her mind. But I do feel like there are ways of being
sexy or sensual or alluring or attractive that don’t rely on exposing your body
parts or playing into stereotypical Maxim magazine-style notions of what a sexy
person is. So for me, the female artists
I’ve always looked up to are the ones who don’t play the game that set female
artists backwards. Instead of talking about
music, we’re talking about how hot someone is.
For me, my only concern about that was just… are people even talking
about music anymore? Or are we just
talking about nonsense? That’s another
big concern I have. The world seems to
be more preoccupied with drama or boob jobs or lip jobs or image and all that
shit more than whether or not this person is actually a freaking artist or do
they actually write good songs or do you
actually enjoy the album? I found it
slightly irritating that I felt most people were talking about things that had
nothing to do with music. I also saw how
it could be really hurtful for an artist to encounter that type of negativity, kind
of a backlash. Like I said, I can’t
speak for her or anybody. I can’t say
what her reasoning is or how she was marketed or how much control she had. But I do think that the female artists I’ve
always looked up to, they are being themselves, they are smart and intelligent
women. I can’t say anything for her, I
don’t know her. I was mostly
disappointed though with the fact that it was all anyone could talk about for
almost a year. I found that depressing and
I saw it as a really sad reflection of the state of the internet and the state
of music journalism. I felt like people
weren’t talking about whether she was a good songwriter or made good records.
FR: She’s almost become iconic.
But for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe they're the right reasons.
VL: For me, what I meant when I said the industry is always going
to have problems- even in the 80s when you had glam-metal bands when it was all
about hair and metal pants and having women with their tits out and cherry cola
or whatever. I almost felt for a second
like we were back there. People were
still being tantalized by the same shit they will always be tantalized by. For me, it was a weird throwback to a time
period and I was like, “Jesus!” Because
up until that point, I’d seen plenty of artists that never made me feel that
way. But for some reason the world
started talking in a way that reminded me of another era. I hope as well that people can learn from
that experience. I’m curious to see what
she’ll do next. Maybe she is an artist
and will learn from this experience and see how vicious people were. Because the internet can also be really
fucking vicious. So artists have to
protect themselves and be aware that if they do certain things, people are
really going to… like… get them.
FR: I think it was one of the few times where people put up their hands and said “Whoa,
whoa… we’re calling bullshit…”
VL: I think Hipster Runoff handled the situation really honestly
and hilariously. I think what you
learned from that experience is who was an honest person and who was part of
the problem. And that’s sort of where it
was actually interesting because it did divide people between people calling “bullshit”
and people playing the game. And the
people playing the game were so clearly playing the game and the people who
were like Hipster Runoff were kind of like showing that this was a potentially
huge problem with “us”, y’know? People
being on the internet and how we talk about stuff and the language that we use
and the dumb things we are still attracted to- and have we really only come
this far? I have hope. I think that was just a moment and it
passed. And thank God it passed. Now you know what can happen.
FR: The guys at Hipster Runoff brilliantly dissected that entire
experience.
VL: Well, it was more than Lana.
She became more than what she is.
She became a representation of an idea or of a potential problem in the
future. What happened to her was almost
like a learning experience for the internet or something, y’know? I hope she’s okay.
FR: Me too, me too. To
Lana!
VL: She is a human being after all.
FR: Yes, she is.
- Fr. Jones
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